Neversink Museum gives silents screening

Cuddebackville — On Friday and Saturday, the Neversink Valley Area Museum will present a symposium focusing on the silent films made in this region and the legacy they left.

Cuddebackville — On Friday and Saturday, the Neversink Valley Area Museum will present a symposium focusing on the silent films made in this region and the legacy they left.

This event will include lectures and screenings of silent short films made both in the early 1900s and as recently as this year.

It will be held under a tent on the lawn behind the museum's main building, so bring a blanket or low chair.

At 8 p.m. Friday, the museum will hold a screening of silent films made in this region or made by those who worked here. These film pioneers include D.W. Griffith, Mack Sennett, Mabel Normand, Lillian and Dorothy Gish, and Anita Loos. In order to show the full scope of films of the silent era, the films shown will include melodrama, comedy and horror. Eileen White, a film director who teaches film theory and history at Queensborough Community College, will speak about the films and their creators.

"The silent filmmakers were true pioneers as they were doing things that had never been done before," said White. "They paved the way for all filmmakers, and we all owe them for developing the grammar of narrative film as well as all the great entertainment they have given us."

At 4 p.m. Saturday, Edwin Thanhouser, grandson of the founders of the Thanhouser Film Co. of New Rochelle, will speak about the history of that company, which filmed "The Forest Rose" in Cuddebackville in 1912. Thanhouser, a film preservationist, will screen films made by his grandfather's company.

Immediately following this presentation will be a screening of submissions to the museum's first silent short film competition. To help celebrate its 40th anniversary as an institution promoting the history of western Orange County, the museum asked filmmakers to submit short movies without any synchronized sound.

"This competition was created to help the museum foster the work of emerging filmmakers and to promote the history of this important industry that began to mature right in our neighborhood," said Seth Goldman, the museum's executive director. "The Biograph Co. came to Cuddebackville in July of 1909, three months before they first arrived in Los Angeles. Lillian Gish commented in her later years that had we had Southern California's climate, there would have been no need to ever leave this region, and what is known as 'Hollywood' would probably be here in Orange County."

The Neversink Valley Area Museum is at 26 Hoag Road (off Route 209) in Cuddebackville. Admission to the event is $5, $2.50 for children and museum members. Memberships will be available at the door. For more information, call 754-8870 or go to www.neversinkmuseum.org.